Don't Let Politics Cloud Cuba Offer

By DeWayne Wickham, USA Today, 30 January 2001

HAVANA -- In the two years since opening its Latin American
School of Medical Sciences, Cuba has filled its classrooms
with more than 3,400 students from 23 countries. Most of
them come from Central and South America. A few of the
students are from nations in sub-Saharan Africa.

The multinational makeup of the student body is reflected
in a display of flags in the lobby of one of the school's
administrative buildings. At the center of this array is a
space for the next flag Cuba hopes to add to this mix --
that of the United States.

500 school slots available

Late last year, the Cuba government offered to provide a
free medical-school education to 500 U.S. students -- half
of these slots for African-Americans and the rest to be
divided between Hispanics and Native Americans. To qualify,
students must be economically disadvantaged and willing to
return home after graduation and practice medicine for at
least five years in impoverished communities.

The Cuban proposal is an act of medical diplomacy. In the 41
years since Fidel Castro came to power, Cuba has excelled in
the production of doctors. This nation of 11 million people
has 21 medical schools that have increased the number of
Cuban doctors from a little more than 3,000 after this
nation's communist government took hold to more than 60,000
today, Cuban officials say. As the ranks of Cuba's homegrown
doctors increased, the health of this nation spiraled upward.
The infant mortality rate here is low, and the life expectancy
rate is high. During the 1990s, Cuba sent more than 20,000
doctors to Third World countries. Castro hopes this export
of health care -- not Marxist-Leninist philosophy -- will
win his government increased support among the people of
these nations.

Cuba's offer to U.S. students, no doubt, is rooted in
the same thinking. Next month, the director of Cuba's
international medical school, Dr. Juan Carrizo Estevez,
hopes to travel to the United States to meet with black
college officials and the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC)
to discuss Cuba's offer. Last year when Ricardo Alarcon, the
president of Cuba's National Assembly, sought to attend a
CBC function at which he planned to announce the offer
to train African-American doctors, Bill Clinton's State
Department refused to issue him a visa. Let's hope the
Bush administration will not do the same to Estevez.

Black community needs help

The health-care delivery system in far too many U.S.
black communities rivals that of Third World nations. Infant
mortality and life expectancy rates among African-Americans
pale in comparison to those Cubans now experience. Even when
African-Americans have access to doctors -- the vast majority
of whom are white -- many receive disparate medical treatment.
Several medical studies have found that doctors are more
likely to refer whites than African-Americans for medical
treatments that could save their lives.

Cuba's proposal won't solve these problems, but it could
potentially lessen their impact. While Cuba's offer might
send a chill up the spines of those who still view Castro's
regime as a Cold War enemy, it is an appealing idea to many
African-Americans who view the U.S. economic embargo against
Cuba as a mean-spirited policy. More importantly, the embargo's
rules don't prohibit African-American students from accepting
the free medical-school education Cuba is offering. People are
permitted to go to Cuba for academic purposes, as long as they
do not exceed the spending limits the Treasury Department has
imposed on U.S. citizens who come here legally.

While Cuban officials won't say as much, they hope their
offer will help loosen the economic noose the United States
has had around their country's neck for four decades. That's
understandable. Good deeds should be rewarded. Cuba's offer
to train hundreds of African-Americans as doctors is a
helping hand that shouldn't be made the latest casualty
of this country's Soviet-era policy toward this Caribbean
island nation.

Copyright (c) 2001 USA Today, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

[IMPORTANT NOTE: The views and opinions expressed on this
list are solely those of the authors and/or publications,
and do not necessarily represent or reflect the official
political positions of the Black Radical Congress (BRC).
Official BRC statements, position papers, press releases,
action alerts, and announcements are distributed exclusively
via the BRC-PRESS list. As a subscriber to this list, you
have been added to the BRC-PRESS list automatically.]

[Articles on BRC-NEWS may be forwarded and posted on other
mailing lists, as long as the wording/attribution is not altered
in any way. In particular, if there is a reference to a web site
where an article was originally located, do *not* remove that.

Unless stated otherwise, do *not* publish or post the entire
text of any articles on web sites or in print, without getting
*explicit* permission from the article author or copyright holder.
Check the fair use provisions of the copyright law in your country
for details on what you can and can't do.

As a courtesy, we'd appreciate it if you let folks know how to
subscribe to BRC-NEWS, by leaving in the first seven lines of the
signature below.]